Glass cameo cup (scyphus) fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue with opaque white overlay; handle in translucent cobalt blue. Slightly everted rim tapering to rounded vertical lip; convex curving side; part of right side of handle attachment overlaid on white with small pointed projection. On exterior, in deep relief two satyrs, naked from hips and waist, the one to right with his right arm around shoulder of the other, who is leaning back and playing the double flute, held aloft by both his hands; to either side of satyrs branches of pine trees. Broken with weathered edges; pitting of surface bubbles, dulling, and creamy weathering with iridescence.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art